I thought that maybe I could turn all the impossible situations in my life right now into some kind of running column. So I already discussed the impossibility of learning spanish here. Now i want to talk about the impossibility of crossing the border into Chile, and thus renewing our visas. The failure of Mission Chile means only one thing: rapid deportation. Failure is not an option.
As many of you know, it is nearly impossible to obtain a work visa in Argentina. The government is highly opposed to work visas for foreigners because they require a lot more paperwork. At least that is the main reason as far as I can figure. So we are living (and working) here on 3-month tourist visas. In short, this means we must leave Argentina every 90 days in order to continue living here. This necessity certainly informed our decision of where to live. Bs. As. is just a boat ride away from Uruguay; Mendoza just a few miles from Chile. These are by far the easiest exit points for visa renewals. However, when we chose Mendoza/Chile, we stupidly failed to factor in one small detail: our visas were due to expire at the end of July (the absolute dead of winter here), and we had to cross over the highest mountain range in South America. Hmmmm.... a bad move for which we are paying dearly now.
For the last 3 weeks, the pass to Chile has been closed. Sometimes, the reason is listed as heavy snow or ice, but more often the problem is wind. One particular type of wind, usually: the Zonda wind. The Zonda winds are specific to the Andes, although similar weather patterns create the Santa Ana winds in Santa Barbara, for example. The Zonda is a super strong, super heated mass of dry air that is forced up over the Andes by an incoming cold air stormfront. The Zonda is incredibly strong and incredibly dangerous when you happen to be traveling down a narrow, icy mountain road at the bottom of a mountainous valley more than 4000 m above sea level. The Zonda is a mighty foe.
So for the last 3 weekends, we have been making and canceling hostel/hotel reservations in various locales in Chile. Each weekend, we wake up early, check the pass conditions, and reluctantly return to bed in Mendoza. Thwarted again! However, this weekend just so happens to be our last chance. And Mission Chile is once again proving to be: Impossible! The Zonda has thwarted us once more, and I don't know what to do. And as I said, failure is not an option for this mission. So we will try again tomorrow, and then maybe we will be forced to go on the lam in the mountains, or turn to bribery...
July 24, 2010
July 21, 2010
Mission Spanish: Impossible.
Let's talk about: Spanish. Specifically, how difficult the acquisition of Spanish is proving to be for me, and how excluded I often feel as a result.
Why should spanish be so hard for me to learn? After all, I moved to a spanish-speaking country. Logically, this should make it easier to learn spanish. Constant exposure combined with near-constant humiliation for saying the wrong thing. What a recipe for rapid learning! Additionally, logic dictates that with such an abundance of spanish speakers, it should be a breeze to convince someone to tutor me a couple of hours a week. Right? I mean, logically, that makes sense...
Unfortunately, this has not been the case for me. Not even close. While the constant exposure has certainly forced me to pick up a lot of new words and learn a small selection of interactive speech, I feel woefully lost whenever I attempt to hold a basic conversation with someone. Add to this the general impatience of the people here, and I often find that people simply walk off in frustration while I am still trying to form an appropriate response to their question(s). So although I can now order food, buy a sweater, or ask directions with relative competency, I am utterly incapable of engaging the waiter, salesgirl, or fellow pedestrian/busdriver/loitering teenagers in a conversation.
My first response to this situation was to study more on my own. My friend Sabrina gifted me her spanish textbook when she left Argentina to return home to Europe, and I started to studying whenever I had free time. For those of you who know me well, this is pretty typical behavior. Whatever you want to call this tactic, it isn't working for me.
Here's why: the crappy part about learning a language is that you have to speak it. This makes conversation far and away the hardest aspect of a language to learn. Because to become conversational, you have to have a conversation. Actually, you have to have A LOT of conversations. About stupid stuff, about meaningful stuff, about any kind of stuff really. And yet I feel pressed up against this brick wall, because no matter how many verb tenses and vocab lists I study, what I really need is an obligatory listener. That's right: I need someone who has no choice but to listen to my bad spanish and wait patiently through my awkward pauses and then, preferably, to correct that whole mumble-jumble of hogwash until it sounds remotely like something intelligible. Unfortunately, I have yet to find my own obligatory listener. Of the roughly 1 million fluent inhabitants of Mendoza, I have yet to find one person who I can PAY to listen to me! That is just not logical.
So my next response was to look beyond myself: spanish school! This week, I sent 14 emails to the 14 spanish schools and institutes listed in Mendoza. To all, I asked the same question: Can I take spanish just once or twice a week, in a group or with a tutor? From all I received the same response: Sure, no problem, that will be $35-40 US DOLLARS an hour. That is roughly six times what I make an hour. And what the hell? I live, work, and study in Argentina- not the US- why are you charging US dollars? But apparently it doesn't matter that my zip code, phone number, and place of employment are local, as a foreigner, I am still subject to foreign prices. And that is the flipside to learning spanish in an exclusively spanish-speaking country: there is so little demand for cheap spanish lessons that they simply don't exist. The whole industry is targeted toward short-term tourists, panicked backpackers, and rich americans/europeans who are willing to spend over US$1,000 for one week of spanish classes in Argentina, not including the airfare to fly a few thousand miles south.
So if the crappy part of learning a new language is the necessity of a patient listener and some demand for cheap lessons, then the crappy part of living in a place where you don't speak the language is the necessity of friends. If not for this nagging need for friendship, I would be fine spending all my free time buried in my spanish textbook. Yet, I am a social creature in the end, and after 3 months of isolation, I am longing in a really dreadful way to join in the lively and animated conversations all around me. I am longing to laugh at the jokes, to meet my girlfriend for cafe and a friendly chat about our boyfriends, to meet my friends for drinks after the sun goes down. In truth, there are thousands (if not millions) of expats living all over the world in countries where they don't speak (or speak very little) of the native language. Many expats choose to surround themselves with other expats, people who share their mother-tongue, and avoid the whole inconvenience of learning the language. I am not criticizing this tendency at all. But first, I have to find some expats that I like. Because to me, there has to be more than just a common mother-tongue to forge a friendship with someone. Even if you are living in isolation a world away from everything familiar.
So there you have it: Spanish and I are at a standstill. Given that learning Spanish was one of my main objectives in moving down here, I am more than a little frustrated with the situation. Any suggestions?
Why should spanish be so hard for me to learn? After all, I moved to a spanish-speaking country. Logically, this should make it easier to learn spanish. Constant exposure combined with near-constant humiliation for saying the wrong thing. What a recipe for rapid learning! Additionally, logic dictates that with such an abundance of spanish speakers, it should be a breeze to convince someone to tutor me a couple of hours a week. Right? I mean, logically, that makes sense...
Unfortunately, this has not been the case for me. Not even close. While the constant exposure has certainly forced me to pick up a lot of new words and learn a small selection of interactive speech, I feel woefully lost whenever I attempt to hold a basic conversation with someone. Add to this the general impatience of the people here, and I often find that people simply walk off in frustration while I am still trying to form an appropriate response to their question(s). So although I can now order food, buy a sweater, or ask directions with relative competency, I am utterly incapable of engaging the waiter, salesgirl, or fellow pedestrian/busdriver/loitering teenagers in a conversation.
My first response to this situation was to study more on my own. My friend Sabrina gifted me her spanish textbook when she left Argentina to return home to Europe, and I started to studying whenever I had free time. For those of you who know me well, this is pretty typical behavior. Whatever you want to call this tactic, it isn't working for me.
Here's why: the crappy part about learning a language is that you have to speak it. This makes conversation far and away the hardest aspect of a language to learn. Because to become conversational, you have to have a conversation. Actually, you have to have A LOT of conversations. About stupid stuff, about meaningful stuff, about any kind of stuff really. And yet I feel pressed up against this brick wall, because no matter how many verb tenses and vocab lists I study, what I really need is an obligatory listener. That's right: I need someone who has no choice but to listen to my bad spanish and wait patiently through my awkward pauses and then, preferably, to correct that whole mumble-jumble of hogwash until it sounds remotely like something intelligible. Unfortunately, I have yet to find my own obligatory listener. Of the roughly 1 million fluent inhabitants of Mendoza, I have yet to find one person who I can PAY to listen to me! That is just not logical.
So my next response was to look beyond myself: spanish school! This week, I sent 14 emails to the 14 spanish schools and institutes listed in Mendoza. To all, I asked the same question: Can I take spanish just once or twice a week, in a group or with a tutor? From all I received the same response: Sure, no problem, that will be $35-40 US DOLLARS an hour. That is roughly six times what I make an hour. And what the hell? I live, work, and study in Argentina- not the US- why are you charging US dollars? But apparently it doesn't matter that my zip code, phone number, and place of employment are local, as a foreigner, I am still subject to foreign prices. And that is the flipside to learning spanish in an exclusively spanish-speaking country: there is so little demand for cheap spanish lessons that they simply don't exist. The whole industry is targeted toward short-term tourists, panicked backpackers, and rich americans/europeans who are willing to spend over US$1,000 for one week of spanish classes in Argentina, not including the airfare to fly a few thousand miles south.
So if the crappy part of learning a new language is the necessity of a patient listener and some demand for cheap lessons, then the crappy part of living in a place where you don't speak the language is the necessity of friends. If not for this nagging need for friendship, I would be fine spending all my free time buried in my spanish textbook. Yet, I am a social creature in the end, and after 3 months of isolation, I am longing in a really dreadful way to join in the lively and animated conversations all around me. I am longing to laugh at the jokes, to meet my girlfriend for cafe and a friendly chat about our boyfriends, to meet my friends for drinks after the sun goes down. In truth, there are thousands (if not millions) of expats living all over the world in countries where they don't speak (or speak very little) of the native language. Many expats choose to surround themselves with other expats, people who share their mother-tongue, and avoid the whole inconvenience of learning the language. I am not criticizing this tendency at all. But first, I have to find some expats that I like. Because to me, there has to be more than just a common mother-tongue to forge a friendship with someone. Even if you are living in isolation a world away from everything familiar.
So there you have it: Spanish and I are at a standstill. Given that learning Spanish was one of my main objectives in moving down here, I am more than a little frustrated with the situation. Any suggestions?
July 14, 2010
Hollow (Wo)Man Fills In
Prompted by my friend Tanya via facebook today, I am going to get my butt in gear and finally post something this week. I have been trying to take some time over the weekends to sit down and write. However, to my never-ending surprise, the pace of life has started to pick up for us in this last week and I have been putting off the sometimes onerous task of writing in favor of... sleep, mostly. Yet today Tanya took the time out of her day to send me that most heartwarming of comments for any writer (of any sort): "I read your blog." Beautiful! Sometimes I question the validity of this weekly ritual. Am I pointlessly publishing my very personal fears and debacles, mundane triumphs (like eating all my leftovers) and embarrassing faux paus? Am I just another voice among millions online, speaking something no one will hear? This is writer's paranoia; clarified and crystallized by the endless potential readership online. Sure, millions of people COULD read my thoughts on life, but what if NONE choose to do so? That, my friends, is rejection on an epic scale.
I digress. Let me just say thanks to Tanya for A)supporting this effort, and B)Thrusting me into a heightened state of paranoia. Just kidding, about the latter anyway. On to the subject at hand...
Life! Life is starting to fill in around the edges for me lately. Whenever I move to a new place, especially someplace far removed and foreign, life has a tendency to feel a bit hollow after the initial elation wears off. There is a period of settling in, my father might call it "acclimatizing" to a new place that feels like you just can't find enough to fill the days. Sure, I managed to work a grand total of 5.5 hours in the whole of June but somehow this grueling agenda just wasn't filling up my calendar. Nor did the 110 pesos (about 25 US dollars)I earned manage to go very far toward a thrilling social life. And with no work and no money, precious few friends and an endless winter, life definitely felt like it could be giving me more.
Thankfully, July is looking up. Even as the weather has turned brutally cold and I find myself wearing sometimes 4 or 5 layers, I feel like I am slipping into a warm bath as life opens up for me. Not only am I working every day (granted only about 3 hours, on average), but we have managed to attend a party, find and sign a contract on a beautiful new apartment, and FINALLY tracked down some dark chocolate! Ah, fulfillment.
Now that I have early morning classes, I find myself pausing to listen to the birds sing in the trees of Plaza Independencia as the frost slowly saturates the ground. I like the feeling of purpose as I walk, bundled up like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, to meet my students. But wait, there's more: Pat has also managed to find some work this week! I can see the difference in his face: it is hard to feel blue when you are doing something you like, when you have a bit o' purpose in your step. I couldn't be happier for him, and I hope that he continues to find more (his weekly average is also somewhere around 3 hours).
The other change that I feel is worth mentioning is this: I have reverted to a vegetarian/omnivore diet again, demoted from the blood sucking carnivore that Argentinian meat temporarily transformed me into. Always fairly attune to my body's needs and deprivations, I decided it was time to cut back on the meat for awhile, especially red meat. In Argentina, this is something like cutting potatoes out of an Irishman's diet. No meat = no meal. But I was feeling sluggish and sore in the mornings, with low energy all day. Also, near daily headaches paired with an intense craving for sweets made me pretty much constantly cranky. Since cutting back on the meat and more than doubling my daily vegetable intake, I feel like a new woman. I sleep easier (despite waking up before sunrise), my skin looks at least twice as good, and I have the energy to actually DO stuff in the middle of the day. I know its not for everyone, and possibly not ANYone in Argentina, but I know my body and meat is like a slow poison. Delicious, juicy, and incredibly flavorful when cooked over smoky coals, but poison all the same. Try and keep it under wraps though: I haven't told my butcher and he might go all Sweeny Todd on me...
ps: It's snowing right now. Eat your heart out, beautiful Oregon summer! (please don't smite me, I love you summertime!)
I digress. Let me just say thanks to Tanya for A)supporting this effort, and B)Thrusting me into a heightened state of paranoia. Just kidding, about the latter anyway. On to the subject at hand...
Life! Life is starting to fill in around the edges for me lately. Whenever I move to a new place, especially someplace far removed and foreign, life has a tendency to feel a bit hollow after the initial elation wears off. There is a period of settling in, my father might call it "acclimatizing" to a new place that feels like you just can't find enough to fill the days. Sure, I managed to work a grand total of 5.5 hours in the whole of June but somehow this grueling agenda just wasn't filling up my calendar. Nor did the 110 pesos (about 25 US dollars)I earned manage to go very far toward a thrilling social life. And with no work and no money, precious few friends and an endless winter, life definitely felt like it could be giving me more.
Thankfully, July is looking up. Even as the weather has turned brutally cold and I find myself wearing sometimes 4 or 5 layers, I feel like I am slipping into a warm bath as life opens up for me. Not only am I working every day (granted only about 3 hours, on average), but we have managed to attend a party, find and sign a contract on a beautiful new apartment, and FINALLY tracked down some dark chocolate! Ah, fulfillment.
Now that I have early morning classes, I find myself pausing to listen to the birds sing in the trees of Plaza Independencia as the frost slowly saturates the ground. I like the feeling of purpose as I walk, bundled up like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, to meet my students. But wait, there's more: Pat has also managed to find some work this week! I can see the difference in his face: it is hard to feel blue when you are doing something you like, when you have a bit o' purpose in your step. I couldn't be happier for him, and I hope that he continues to find more (his weekly average is also somewhere around 3 hours).
The other change that I feel is worth mentioning is this: I have reverted to a vegetarian/omnivore diet again, demoted from the blood sucking carnivore that Argentinian meat temporarily transformed me into. Always fairly attune to my body's needs and deprivations, I decided it was time to cut back on the meat for awhile, especially red meat. In Argentina, this is something like cutting potatoes out of an Irishman's diet. No meat = no meal. But I was feeling sluggish and sore in the mornings, with low energy all day. Also, near daily headaches paired with an intense craving for sweets made me pretty much constantly cranky. Since cutting back on the meat and more than doubling my daily vegetable intake, I feel like a new woman. I sleep easier (despite waking up before sunrise), my skin looks at least twice as good, and I have the energy to actually DO stuff in the middle of the day. I know its not for everyone, and possibly not ANYone in Argentina, but I know my body and meat is like a slow poison. Delicious, juicy, and incredibly flavorful when cooked over smoky coals, but poison all the same. Try and keep it under wraps though: I haven't told my butcher and he might go all Sweeny Todd on me...
ps: It's snowing right now. Eat your heart out, beautiful Oregon summer! (please don't smite me, I love you summertime!)
July 5, 2010
Bueno y no Bueno
A short post tonight. Just a few excellent things that happened to me today:
- We officially signed the lease for our new apartment in Mendoza. We can move in anytime after July 12th. When I say official, I mean OFFICIAL. As in: a real Argentinian lawyer's office in downtown Mendoza where I had to surrender my passport, then attempt to understand the fastest spanish in the world as the lawyer read off four pages of our leasing contract. Primero thru Cuatro I got the jist of. Quatro thru nueve were a bit fuzzy as my mind refused to keep up with my ears. Thank god that Daniel saw my quizzical look and jumped in to translate...
- I managed to crank out four lesson plans, run to the print shop and put them on paper, pop into MEGATONE, the world's weirdest appliance shop and eat a media luna in the space of just three hours. I must be getting good at this being productive thing...
PS> Megatone: where you can find buzz saws in glass display cases, washing machines with ranges, and a german security guard with a blond hitler stash. Love you, Argentina.
- My sprained ankle no longer looks like a marshmellow. Delightfully, it has turned into a blue and yellow deflated balloon. Or something like that.
- I ate all the leftovers in our fridge.
- I finally obtained the long sought-after number of a taxi company in mendoza. Now I no longer have to poach taxis from the rich snobs at the Hyatt.
-My new brown hair looks pretty good.
Of course, there were a few no-so-good things that happened to me today too.
- Our housing contract is in spanish, and somewhere in there it states that I must buy insurance in order to have students in my house. Apparently, it is common for students/maids/contractors to sue you if they poke their eye out in your kitchen. So much for trust and another 30 pesos a month...
- A notary in Argentina costs $690 pesos. What? I think its less expensive to BECOME a notary in the states!
- I had a rather disastrous first lesson with one of my new students. Because he used words like "placate" in our first meeting, I wrongly assumed he was much more advanced than he actually is. As a result I just spent twenty minutes trying to explain the concept of supply and demand. Next time I think we'll go with a basic tense construction.
- I have to wake up at 7am tomorrow and drag my sorry, blimp-like foot across town for a lesson because my students didn't want to miss out on their morning coffee.
- I have to wake up at 7am tomorrow.
- After 4 days, i finally finished my latest English language book. It was, indisputably, the worst worst worst book I have ever read. However, the supply of english books here is so dismal, I am considering reading it again.
- That medialuna I managed to squeeze it today? It was the only thing I had to eat until 10pm.
- Even with my new brown dye job, I still got called "hermosa rubia" today. How can I be a hot blonde with brown hair? Next time, I'm going darker...
- We officially signed the lease for our new apartment in Mendoza. We can move in anytime after July 12th. When I say official, I mean OFFICIAL. As in: a real Argentinian lawyer's office in downtown Mendoza where I had to surrender my passport, then attempt to understand the fastest spanish in the world as the lawyer read off four pages of our leasing contract. Primero thru Cuatro I got the jist of. Quatro thru nueve were a bit fuzzy as my mind refused to keep up with my ears. Thank god that Daniel saw my quizzical look and jumped in to translate...
- I managed to crank out four lesson plans, run to the print shop and put them on paper, pop into MEGATONE, the world's weirdest appliance shop and eat a media luna in the space of just three hours. I must be getting good at this being productive thing...
PS> Megatone: where you can find buzz saws in glass display cases, washing machines with ranges, and a german security guard with a blond hitler stash. Love you, Argentina.
- My sprained ankle no longer looks like a marshmellow. Delightfully, it has turned into a blue and yellow deflated balloon. Or something like that.
- I ate all the leftovers in our fridge.
- I finally obtained the long sought-after number of a taxi company in mendoza. Now I no longer have to poach taxis from the rich snobs at the Hyatt.
-My new brown hair looks pretty good.
Of course, there were a few no-so-good things that happened to me today too.
- Our housing contract is in spanish, and somewhere in there it states that I must buy insurance in order to have students in my house. Apparently, it is common for students/maids/contractors to sue you if they poke their eye out in your kitchen. So much for trust and another 30 pesos a month...
- A notary in Argentina costs $690 pesos. What? I think its less expensive to BECOME a notary in the states!
- I had a rather disastrous first lesson with one of my new students. Because he used words like "placate" in our first meeting, I wrongly assumed he was much more advanced than he actually is. As a result I just spent twenty minutes trying to explain the concept of supply and demand. Next time I think we'll go with a basic tense construction.
- I have to wake up at 7am tomorrow and drag my sorry, blimp-like foot across town for a lesson because my students didn't want to miss out on their morning coffee.
- I have to wake up at 7am tomorrow.
- After 4 days, i finally finished my latest English language book. It was, indisputably, the worst worst worst book I have ever read. However, the supply of english books here is so dismal, I am considering reading it again.
- That medialuna I managed to squeeze it today? It was the only thing I had to eat until 10pm.
- Even with my new brown dye job, I still got called "hermosa rubia" today. How can I be a hot blonde with brown hair? Next time, I'm going darker...
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